


Roger Roger

by crowleyshouseplant



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 19:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6297793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowleyshouseplant/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An abandoned battle droid meets Ahsoka Tano</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roger Roger

**Author's Note:**

> This story is primarily inspired by this piece of fan art: [[link](http://ttyto-alba.tumblr.com/post/118192179616/may-the-fourth-be-with-you-a-little-late-but-i)]

Sometimes you say the most unexpected things. You don't know why you say them, but sometimes you'll hear the words _die jedi dogs_ or _halt republic scum_ in your voice and you'll be looking at an insect with gauzy blue wings swaying on a yellow flower. 

You have hours of recording of this insect because you have crouched here watching it for that long. And every time you speak the insect looks up at you, its wings puffing up like its showing you something. "It won't matter," you tell it. It probably doesn't understand you because it is just an insect which isn't really anything at all. 

When the insect finally flies away, it doesn't go far before it's licked up by something with a really long tongue. You'd warned it. You told it it wouldn't matter.

You also rise and walk towards where you know there is a town. Your power is getting low, you need to recharge. You look down at the blaster you carry. Scorch scars mar the barrel but it could still fire if you had charges for it. But you don't so it is this thing you carry because it feels right to be in your hands. The weight of it is a comfortable presence. You can't imagine yourself without it.

Once someone tried to take it from you, and you had just said, "Hey!" and they had pointed it back at you and pulled the trigger because they didn't know it was dead and then they had thrown it back at you when it hadn't fired its laser blast right in your face.

It had hit you hard in the center of your chest. It had knocked you down. They had laughed as they left you behind because everyone knew the battle droids the Confederacy churned out were so lousy they couldn't even be used in a scrap pile.

You say, "Well, that's not true," but a few days later you discover your joints are rusting and you think that's weird until you remember the rain you had sat in because you liked the way it sounded splashing against your metal plating. It reminded you of hanging in those transports, waiting to be activated to march into battle, swaying against each other as it rumbled over the rough terrain.

Your memories of the battle you fought in are damaged. Most battle droids only make it through one battle. You know this because you don't see anything else indicating you may have fought in another battle on a different system. Your only memories, damaged as they are, are of this place, right here.

You have better luck with the battles you weren't in because the archives were stored elsewhere in your mainframe. Not all the memories are archived in the central computer, just the ones that matter. It's an effort to make the droids more effectual against the techniques of their opponents.

You watch dull clothed jedi mowing you down with their brightly humming sabers, because it might as well be you as you watch through their eyes. This one holo alone is comprised of the archived memories of thousands of droids. It is barely a few minutes in length.

You sag as you plug yourself into one of the public charging station. You were right, you see, it won't matter.

You keep watching the archives as you charge, the rifle resting in your lap as you sit braced against the durasteel walls of a building of no significant tactical advantage. 

You see the Jedi starfighters with their little astromech droids. You recognize one, not because you saw it but because someone else did and it's in the archives. It's Kenobi's starfighter and you know, not from your experience but from this collective experience, that where Kenobi is, Skywalker is not far behind.

You look for Skywalker and you find him eventually. You don't know how Skywalker looks like, personally, because the footage of his face is always brief and distorted because most droids don't get a good look at Skywalker before it's too late, but you always know it's Skywalker because he always has the same astromech droid.

An R2 unit all blue and white.

The droids in the other starfighters were always different from vid to vid, but the R2 unit remained the same. 

You think that maybe the R2 unit is like you. You all look the same to each other, no distinguishing features unless you led a squadron, but none of the other R2 units the Jedi used were the same. 

You are mostly certain that the R2 unit is the same one, which you think is strange and impossible because you've seen Skywalker's starfighter shot down in other videos. There is even a reference to when General Grievous had captured the R2 unit but that he no longer had it which meant that someone had come for the droid because no droid could escape General Grievous.

Only Jedi could do that which means the R2's Jedi had come back for him. And it hadn't been a one time thing either. You would bet your remaining circuits that if Skywalker's starfighter were to do a fly by at this instant, you would see that blue and white astromech at home in its socket.

You raise your long-snouted head. You see the inhabitants of the town going about their business. For the most part, they don't bother you. You think they might be afraid since you are property of the Confederacy but you also think that perhaps you are malfunctioning because sometimes you say things and you don't know why.

You think that your circuits got crossed when you were shot down or cut down. 

You think, maybe, that the rolling wave of war has passed this town by, has passed you by. You are stranded here, but you do not have any protocols for a situation like this or they were fried when you took that blaster shot. 

No one comes back for battle droids. You'd heard stories of the Confederacy scuttling their own ships still filled with droids when they needed to retreat on the rare occasions that the Confederacy experienced defeat to the forces of the republic scum. You had also heard stories that General Grievous would kill battle droids if he was angry or upset.

So yes, you know that where you are, you are going to be staying there until your parts break down or someone decides to put you in a scrap heap, poor grade metal bits or not.

Someone tells you to move along, so you say that you're going, that you're going what's his problem even though you're not all charged up yet. 

But you have enough to last you for a while, and for now you think you'll be fine. 

You don't care where you go as long as you're able to return to the town before you're really stranded on the ground, without power, bent double over like you're waiting for the transports to come and hook you up again.

But they won't come. You know this to be true. It might as well be in your programming. 

You find what had once been the battlefield, near the spot where you think you woke up after that blaster shot didn't hit you quite right. Smoke pillars up towards the sky.

But you sit in the grass. Your weapon is still in your hands, cradled between your spindly legs. You think that this is nice. 

It's nice not to be shot at.

You're not really expecting someone to come up behind you and ask what you're doing here, but someone has. You turn around and you see a young Togruta. There's dirt and blood on her face. You have seen children on the front lines of the war, so you don't think it strange that she is here on a battlefield that is still smoking because the fires were too hot. "Oh nothing," you say. "I'm not doing anything." You point at her. "What are you doing here."

She frowns at you, like she's suspicious. You can tell that she's a fighter like you. You've seen it before on the battlefield. Well, not you personally. Just you collectively speaking. "Don't shoot," you say. It's one of those things you say that doesn't fit in the conversation, like before with the bug, because she doesn't carry a blaster, not like you.

"I'm supposed to be saying that to you," she says, gesturing at the weapon in your hands.

"Oh." You look down at the blaster. "It doesn't work," you say. 

Her eyes narrow. "You probably shouldn't have told me that."

"Oh. Right." This is why they don't come back for battle droids like you.

You look for weapons. You don't see anything at first, but you check again because if she is a soldier like you, then she will have a weapon like you. You focus in on the two shafts of metal slung at her belt. 

You recognize these things. You've seen them. Not you personally. Just you collectively. Except, now you've personally seen them as well.

They are the bright shards of light that shear through metal without effort. 

This is not Skywalker or Kenobi, but close enough. Someone like them. She doesn't wear their robes, it's why it took you so long to realize.

"Jedi," you say, standing clumsily to your legs because your joints are still rusting from the rain that even then couldn't put the fires out. "You're a Jedi!"

It's no use, so you run, even though that is also always no use.

They always catch you. Collectively speaking, you know this to be true.

"Wait!" She calls to you but you know better than to listen. 

You clutch your broken useless weapon in your hands and you run. A few steps later and you trip over a charred chunk of scrap heap metal that could have been you. It still could be you once the lightsabers finish you off.

You sprawl forwards in the grass. You feel something break but you're not sure what. Your blaster flies from your hands and skitters several meters away from you.

You're doomed. 

"I said, wait!" her shadow falls over you, and you raise your head, pathetic hands shielding your face best they can.

"I'm not going to wait for you to kill me."

She crouches beside you. Her weapons are still slung at her belt. "I'm not going to kill you. Destroy you, I mean." She waves her hand and your weapon skitters even farther away from you. 

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to help you," she says as she grips you by the arms and lifts you up. You can't walk, but she guides you over to a crashed ship. She doesn't do it like the Jedi. She does it like she's carrying you.

You sit down. Your hands are strangely empty. They do not belong this empty.

"What's wrong with me?" you ask. 

"Lots of things."

"I was shot."

She looks up at you, her eyes rolling but she's smiling. "I can see that." 

"It did something bad to me. It crossed my wires. I'm malfunctioning. I say rude things to animals without meaning to."

"What kind of things?"

You repeat them. She laughs. "You battle droids say those things all the time. I think it's your programming." 

"The bug was not a Jedi." You're offended that she thinks you would think that.

"That's not what I meant," she says but she doesn't attempt to elaborate further.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

She's silent for a moment. "My master taught me how to fix things. He says that, for him, it's a good way to find peace, and balance. I do know what I'm doing, because he has taught me well." She smiles at you. "You're safe in my hands." She tinkers with your foot and with your circuitry in your back. It's a long time before she says anything else. "You're wrong, you know."

"About what?"

"I'm not a Jedi. Not anymore." She replaces the slab of metal that hides your wiring and pats you on the back. "You're done."

You stand up. You can walk again. Your joints run a little smoother. "You fixed me!" You sprint like you'd tried to do before, and now you can. You pat yourself down. Your are perfect, fresh off the assembly line. 

You look back towards her, to make sure she's watching, but she's gone. "Hey! Where'd you go?" You go back to the grassy knoll, but she is gone. You think about following her, but then you see an insect with sheer blue wings that glow from the sun. 

You crouch down, and watch.


End file.
